Reawakening
by vinteuils-sonata
Summary: Six years after Bad Wolf Bay, a psychologically damaged Rose Tyler regenerates in Pete's World. Now armed with the abilities of a Time Lady, she makes her way back to her home universe, but chooses to hide her true identity from the Doctor when he takes her on as his new companion.
1. Prologue: Revived

Rose Tyler had woken up in a lot of odd places in her life, but the morgue was definitely a new one.

She sat up from the hard metal table. Inspecting her body, she did not seem to be injured. It must have been poison or illness that put her here then. She examined her memories and winced. She had an oddly vivid recollection of being cornered by a rogue Krillitane. She recalled great pain as it laid into her with its claws, the bitter taste of blood filling her mouth, and her fear as she slowly lost consciousness in that lonely alley.

Okay, in that context, the lack of injury was definitely weird.

She saw her clothes in a plastic bag on the side table and went to put them on. They were bloody and ripped, and oddly baggy around the hips. Looking down, the trousers appeared to be too short. This was another oddity that she didn't have time to contemplate.

Taking the elevator the ground floor, she found herself in the Torchwood lobby and sensed it was around midnight. She found her car and drove to her parents' mansion, hoping they could shed some light on what had happened.

When Jackie opened the door, Rose smiled.

"Hello, Mum."

That was odd. Her voice sounded all funny. She cleared her throat.

"Who the hell are you?"

"It's me, Mum. It's Rose. I'm not dead."

There it was again, that strange low voice. Perhaps her throat was a bit dehydrated?

"I dunno what you think you're playin' at, missy, but my Rose died two days ago, and you are definitely not her. Don' you think I know what my own daughter looks like?"

"It's me, Mum. Why don't you recognize me?" Her voice caught.

"Are you tryin' to steal her identity? Is that what you're doin'?" Jackie shook her finger at her. "Well, it isn't going to work, is it? No one takes advantage of my daughter's memory!"

Rose felt the sting of her mother's hand landing across her cheek.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her mum, and a second later her stepfather appeared, rubbing his eyes and sighing heavily.

"What's the problem here, Jacks?"

"This woman is trying to steal Rose's identity!"

"Mum!" Rose took Jackie's hand. "You and I were born in a different universe. My real dad died when I was a baby, and we lived in the Powell Estate. You are obsessed with _EastEnders_ and were gutted when you discovered that _Strictly Come Dancing_ went off the air after one series in this universe…Um…." She trailed off a moment, trying to think of a detail only she would know about her mum, who still looked incredulous.

"Oh! And you confided in me just last week that you bribe the cook to let you make the tea because you don't think she does it right."

There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Rose?" Jackie's eyes went wide, and she lifted her hand to cover her mouth.

"It's really me, Mum."

Pete cleared his throat.

"If you don't mind my asking, Rose, did you know that you could regenerate before this happened?" he asked.

"Of course I can't regenerate! What are you talking about? I just didn't die like you thought I did. It's not like I'm the Doctor and can go about changing my face."

Pete put a steady arm around her shoulders and led her inside, leading her to stand in front of the mirror in the hallway.

"Then again, maybe I can," she breathed after a long speechless moment. She could comprehend no details about the face in the mirror beyond the fact that it was not at all her own. She turned around, feeling dizzy and nauseated.

"I need to sit down."

"I think that would be best for all of us," Pete sighed, following her into the living room.

Rose sat and leaned her head back against the sofa cushions. What did this mean? Did this make her a Time Lady now, or had she just gained regenerative powers? Did she only get this one regeneration, or did she get twelve now, like the Doctor? She focused a moment on clearing her mind of her whirling thoughts so that she could discuss this calmly with her parents.

Unfortunately, clearing her mind did not have the desired effect. Her standard technique of focusing on her own heartbeat led her to perceive the minutiae of the workings of her own body. Not only could she perceive the thumps of her heart, but also her liver producing bile, her kidneys processing waste, even her ovaries preparing to release an egg. She could differentiate the feelings of various hormones pumping through her bloodstream, though she had no names for each of them. Trying again to focus on just her heart, she discovered that she could slow it down or speed it up at will. As these things only caused her mind to spin more, she stopped focusing on her heartbeat and tried to just be.

The effect of this was even worse. Suddenly, it was as if she could comprehend their exact position in time in space and feel the ebb and flow of time. She could feel the Earth turn beneath her feet and see her parents' lives fold out before her, laughing and aging, with Pete surviving a heart attack only to watch Jackie die of cancer the next year. Tears pricked behind her eyes.

Her nausea intensified and her skin began to crawl. In a burst of intuition, she just knew that she didn't belong here, in this time and place, in this universe. Time swirled around her in strange ways, causing the fabric of reality to buckle and fold. There was no natural place for her here, no alternate Rose whose space she might occupy. It was imperative that she return to the other universe immediately. A wild thought hit her, and she found herself smiling genuinely for the first time in six years.

"I think I know how to get home."


	2. Reprised

"Rose, there's a disturbance over by Ely Bridge that's sending up our red flags. Want to go check it out?"

"Sure thing, Jack," Rose replied, looking up from coding a new rift manipulation program. "Just give me a sec to finish this up."

After typing out the last two lines of code, she grabbed her dark green leather jacket and followed Jack out to his SUV.

Rose caught Jack sneaking glances at her as they drove. She sighed.

"Just say it, Jack."

He seemed to consider her a moment, as if debating with himself how much to press her before blurting, "I just don't understand why, after three months back home, you still have made no attempt to contact the Doctor. He misses you like crazy, Rose. I know he does. And don't try to tell me that you don't still lo–"

"It's not that simple. I'm different, Jack. I'm not the same woman I was when I travelled with him. It wouldn't be right to try to pick up where we left off."

"The Doctor of all people understands about regeneration, Rose."

Rose played with the skin of her too delicate wrist. She pushed it forward, watching it move and wrinkle to her will, pinching it so that she could feel the pain, ground herself in this body. She sighed.

"I don't know who I am anymore. How can I expect him to accept me again if I don't even know who that is?" She could barely hear her own voice as she made this confession.

Jack studied her out the corner of his eye.

"You're Rose Tyler," he replied after a beat. "You're the exact same woman I met during a London air raid. You're fearless and forgiving and have the greatest capacity to love of anyone I've ever met."

Rose swallowed and looked away. She began to play with a strand of auburn hair that had come loose from the knot at the back of her head, unable to look Jack in the eye.

"After I was…trapped…." She paused and bit her bottom lip, twisting the hair around her finger in earnest. Taking a breath, she began again, "It was a very dark time in my life, Jack. I can't just pretend that it hasn't had an effect on me. The absolute…" She shuddered and shook her head before continuing on. "It changed me. It would be unfair to both of us if I were to suddenly ring him and try to force upon him the presence of a woman who is completely different from the person he invited to travel with him all those years ago. And our history…it's too much baggage. We couldn't just start over."

She turned to him then.

"Part of me wonders how you've managed to maintain your sense of self after everything you've been through, Jack." She eyed him curiously.

Jack seemed to consider this a moment.

"I've had a lot of time to come to terms with it all, what I've seen, what we do. I just live in the now, Rose. It's how I cope."

Rose nodded and looked down. She still could not get used to her new boyish frame, with its narrower hips, and smaller chest. The too delicate features she saw in the mirror every morning unsettled her. She returned to twisting her hair, giving it a hard pull. She felt a couple strands break free at the roots.

"Well, then, maybe that's what I'm doing. Going back to my life with the Doctor would just be living in the past, wouldn't it?"

Jack raised his eyebrows.

"There's a difference between living in the moment and refusing to acknowledge your past entirely, Rose."

She opened her mouth to retort, but stopped short at the sight before her as they reached their destination.

"Bloody hell. Is that..?"

"Yep."

"Surrounded by…?"

"Yep."

Rose gave Jack a resigned smile.

"Here we go again."

* * *

It was times like these that the Doctor really missed travelling with a companion.

For one, the Judoon would not let you be your own character witness when they arrested you. It was also much more difficult to draw attention away from the fact that you were trying to sonic yourself out of your handcuffs when a hundred and fifty members of the most respected intergalactic police force, who were selected for being the most hard-nosed of a race known for its hard-nosedness, have their steely eyes trained solely on you. And, if the Judoon had their way he would likely be imprisoned for ages and really, that was so much more fun with friends. Prolonged periods of solitude with no adventure to liven things up gave him time alone with his thoughts. And that made him rather maudlin, really. Oh, who was he kidding? Maudlin had been his natural state of being for the better part of six years.

It had been a bit better with Donna aboard. Martha had been brilliant, of course, but the wounds to his hearts had still been so fresh that most of the time her presence did little more that keep him a notch above suicidal. But by the time Donna began travelling with him he felt ready to start living again, even if it would never again be with the same zeal that he once had. And Donna was the best mate he could hope for, always up for an adventure and ready to call him out when he let the anger and grief get to him. He even told her a bit about _Her_, and it felt good have a sympathetic ear to which he could vent some of the pain he kept bottled up inside.

But Donna had met Lee in that virtual world in The Library, and he could not let himself hold her back from having a normal life with the man she loved. Well, as normal a life a twenty-first century human could have single-handedly overhauling the bureaucracy of an alien government millions of light years and thirty centuries away from her place of birth. Donna had not wanted to leave him, but they were eventually able to come to a compromise; he would stop by their flat on a small planet in the Dagmar Cluster once a month for tea, an adventure, and a trip home to visit her mum and grandfather.

He had not even asked anyone to come with him since Donna. Two years had come and gone and he still could not bring himself to be open to that kind of loss again. Not that he had really lost Martha and Donna. He knew he was always welcome for a visit. But the universe lost a bit of her lustre when he had no one to share it with. Perhaps it was time he opened himself to the possibility of bringing someone new on board.

An angry Judoon approached. Weeeell…he said angry, but there really was not much difference between an angry Judoon and a normal Judoon, was there? Unflappable species, the Judoon. But, he had gotten under their tough hides often enough now to distinguish how they marched with a bit more purpose when he was involved.

"Mo ho sno cro dafojo," the Judoon stated.

Oh dear. That charge meant a high security holding cell. Even he couldn't break himself out of one of those.

"Fro grobojo, fomodo!" he replied.

The Judoon grunted and stomped its feet, pulling out an electronic device with rather large antennae extending from the top. Was that…? Oh no, it _was_. The Judoon grabbed his arm and activated the device.

It was going to be a long night.

* * *

She should not have been so surprised to see the TARDIS sitting in the field opposite Ely Bridge surrounded by an angry platoon of Judoon. After all, finding trouble of an alien variety was kind of the Doctor's _thing_. And, having found employment at an organization that does the same thing, they were bound to run into each other eventually. She had just counted on having a bit more time to mentally prepare herself.

Suddenly, both the Doctor and his ship disappeared with a flash of red light.

"C'mon, let's go save him," Rose told Jack, reaching for her bag.

Jack raised his eyebrows.

"And how do you propose we do that? That teleport could have gone anywhere."

Rose pulled out a sonic screwdriver and pointed it toward the location the Doctor was standing moments before.

"Only quatrifold compression teleports flash red like that, and the fun thing about quatrifold compression teleports is that they leave a quantum signature from which I can extrapolate the space-time coordinates of reappearance within a 200 yard margin of error," Rose replied, tilting her head to side thoughtfully for a moment before grabbing Jack's wrist computer and sonicking it.

"What are you doing?"

"Repairing your vortex manipulator so we can follow that teleport."

Rose punched in some coordinates and pressed ENTER. They suddenly found themselves in the abandoned corridor of what appeared to be some kind of space station.

"Right," said Jack. "Keep forgetting about the Time Lady superpowers."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Not superpowers so much as picking up a few things whilst building a transdimensional slingshot."

She scanned their surroundings, and put her ear to a door at the end of the hall.

"Rose…"

Rose waved her hand and shushed him, using her sonic to amplify the voices on the other side of the door.

"Okay," she said finally, turning towards him. "They keep talking about someone who is supposedly the best guard on Chat Dif III. Probably the name of the planet we're on, yeah? Ever heard of it?"

Jack paled visibly.

"It's a high security prison, Rose," he replied. "When I worked for the Time Agency we were told this was the worst possible place we could end up. Once I started travelling time and space I was under the legal jurisdiction of the Shadow Proclamation."

"The Doctor mentioned the Shadow Proclamation a couple of times," Rose nodded.

"That doesn't surprise me. They're intergalactic police. The highest legal authority in the universe. A sort of universal UN, if you will. And if you've broken intergalactic law…they aren't kind, Rose. Chat Dif III is their death row. And their death sentences aren't pretty. They argue that breaking their laws can have a terrible impact on the universe, and therefore the consequences of doing so needs to pose a significant threat to potential perpetrators. And they're not wrong. Xenocide, crimes against time, violation of intergalactic treaties…these are things the universe needs protecting against. But things they do to their prisoners…they would be unthinkable even among the least humane of civilizations. If you're of a species long-lived enough, they might torture you for centuries before finally killing you."

Jack looked at Rose meaningfully.

She took this in. If the Judoon brought the Doctor here they must believe that he broke some kind of intergalactic law. And, if he was convicted of whatever they were accusing him of, he might be at their mercy for millennia before his ultimate death. She shivered. That sure as hell wouldn't happen on her watch.

"Well, we're going to have to rescue him then, aren't we?" Rose had no shadow of a doubt of what her course of action would be.

Jack grabbed her hand, stopping her from setting off down the corridor.

"Rose, we're going to want to have a plan for this one. I know that you like to use the Doctor method and just improvise, but we really cannot afford a screw this one up. I'm immortal, and I would wager the entire contents of my bank account that you have a few more regenerations left in you. We're facing thousands of years of every kind of torture imaginable if we're caught."

Rose hesitated a moment and gnawed at her bottom lip. She did not like the thought of the Doctor being locked up here for any length of time. Then again, she also knew she would not be able to save him if she was imprisoned herself.

"Alright," she conceded. "Let's do this your way."

* * *

The Doctor leaned his head back against the cool metal wall of his cell, fighting the urge to scratch where the rough material of the boiler suit they had forced him into rubbed against his skin. He found it quite ironic that the Shadow Proclamation thought that solitary confinement was the mildest form of punishment they could inflict upon him. Oh how wrong they were. He would take the physical torture and the invasions of his mind to implant psychic horror over this. Hell, even the manipulations of his time sense, which would have made any other member of a time sensitive species go mad, were preferable to the isolation. There was a reason he avoided being left alone with his conscience these days. It almost made him wish that the next Judoon to come by would knock four times.

Suddenly, the door to his cell burst open, and he jumped up. Before him stood a tall woman in a green leather jacket who bore absolutely no resemblance to the Judoon he was expecting to see. She walked up to him swiftly and took his hand.

"We need to run," she said in a low voice, dragging him towards the door.

"Right. Yes."

She pulled him forward, peeking out briefly before taking off at top speed down the long corridor, still clutching his hand tightly. This was certainly a role reversal. Usually he was the one grabbing hands and telling people to run for their lives.

They zigzagged through corridors, seemingly at random, though he had a sense from the purposeful look in his rescuer's eyes that she knew exactly where she was going. He had an idle thought that they should have run into a Judoon by now.

His gaze flicked again to the woman firmly clutching his hand. Humanoid. Auburn hair. Green eyes. Mid-twenties, he would guess, if she was from a time before drugs to slow the aging process were invented. Of if she was from Oombuprak. But her fingers lacked webbing, so that option seemed unlikely. If fashion was anything to go by he would guess that she was a human from the early twenty-first century. Maybe late twentieth. Though, if that were the case, what was she doing on Chat Dif III in 8347?

They stopped briefly at the end of the hall and she pulled him so that their backs were against the cool metal wall as she peeked around the corner.

"Bugger. Judoon coming this way," she muttered, looking around quickly before pulling him with her into a nearby supply cupboard.

"Surprised we didn't run into any before now," he whispered, pushed closely against her in the cramped space.

"Jack's creating a distraction that should occupy most of them, while I get you to your TARDIS," she whispered back, smirking slightly.

Jack. Harkness? Must be. How else could she know about the TARDIS? Though, last he checked Jack didn't have the technology to get here. Maybe a future Jack? The man was immortal. Though that still couldn't explain how anyone outside the Shadow Proclamation knew he was here. They kept no records and were notoriously tight-lipped about the identity of the prisoners they contained in Chat Dif III. No, the most likely explanation was that they found a way to follow him from Cardiff. Though, how they might have managed that, he hadn't a clue.

"We need to get you down to confiscated goods on the ground floor," she continued. "That's where they're holding the TARDIS. Do they have any kind of special fields over this planet that would prevent you from entering the vortex once we get you there?"

"No," he replied, "their containment security and surveillance is supposed to be impossible to escape and they strip search prisoners to make sure they don't have any vortex manipulators or their ilk. Plus, they need to be able to trans-temporally teleport suspects into holding cells, which they can't do if they limit access to the vortex."

He paused a moment. Her knowledge of these things went far beyond what he would expect of any human, aside from a time agent. Maybe Jack had taught her a few things?

"You're Torchwood?"

"Yep," she replied, popping the p in such a way that she might be mimicking him, had she ever heard him say the word.

He cleared his throat.

"So I'm the Doc–"

"Time to run again," she said before he had a chance to ask her name, pulling him with her out the door, before immediately shoving him back inside again.

Through the door, he heard the muffled sound of her voice.

"Hello there, boys! Did you hear about the disturbance down in the Convention Chamber? Mad isn't it?"

"You are not authorized on this level," replied the harsh monotone of a Judoon.

He cracked the door open, preparing to jump in and help her. She didn't deserve to be captured by the Shadow Proclamation for his sake. He most certainly was not worth that.

"What? Of course I am. I'm cleaning staff. Even high security holding cells need cleaning. Just returning my supplies to this cupboard here before heading home for the day."

He felt her lean back against the cupboard, latch clicking as she closed it. He tried the door again and met firm resistance. That little… Wait, was that a particle-level bioscanner he just heard? Shit. Shitshitshitshit…

"Confirmed. Member of high security housekeeping staff. You may proceed."

He let out a breath. If she was Torchwood, then how did she get herself into the Chat Dif III personnel records? Before he could contemplate this further, the door opened and she grabbed his hand again, pulling him with her down the corridor.

At the end of the hall, she pulled him into a lift, selecting the ground floor on the control panel and entering a code to prevent it from stopping at any other floors in transit. He felt it shudder into motion, and they began a slow descent down forty-seven floors.

"What did you think you were doing back there?" He turned to her, giving her a murderous glare. "Do you know what the Judoon could have done to you if you had been caught? We're talking–"

"Yes, I'm quite aware of the consequences of trifling with the Shadow Proclamation." She gave him a meaningful look. "I hacked the mainframe before coming to get you to give myself a plausible reason for being on that level."

"You shouldn't be risking yourself for me."

Her eyebrows narrowed, and she spared him glance before returning her gaze to the steel lift doors. "I think I can be the judge of for whom I should risk my life, Doctor."

The lift dinged and the doors opened onto another steel-lined hallway. He followed her to a large archway that opened onto a large, circular chamber where a large crowd had assembled. In the centre stood Jack Harkness, wearing nothing but his wrist computer.

"Really, Shadow Architect, how could you not want a piece of this?" Jack flashed his signature flirty smile, seemingly oblivious to the hundred Judoon pointing their weapons at him.

"Sir, you need to leave before I hold you in contempt of the Shadow Proclamation!" the Shadow Architect threatened, red-tinged eyes flashing dangerously.

"See, I've got this little S&M fantasy involving you, me and one of your high security holding cells," Jack smirked, eyes roving her form. "The Judoon can watch if that's your thing. I'm always up for an audience."

The Doctor felt a tug on his arm.

"C'mon. This way." The Doctor looked away from the spectacle to see his rescuer pulling him in the direction of a nondescript door across the hall.

"What about Jack?" he asked, slipping with her into what looked like some kind of storage room, with long rows of neatly catalogued items.

"I signalled to him that I got you, so he knows that he can give up the ruse," she answered, leading him through the labyrinthine shelves in an expert manner. "I fixed his vortex manipulator, so he'll be able to get back to the Hub just fine on his own."

"I'm sorry, you did…you did WHAT?" the Doctor replied.

She rolled her eyes, but didn't reply.

"And while we're at it, how did you track me here? I was trans-temporally teleported!"

"You don't have a monopoly on knowledge of temporal physics, Doctor."

He grabbed her shoulders, then, to stop her.

"All I know is that you've demonstrated knowledge not available to even the most advanced scientists of your species until thirty centuries in your future. Jack may have taught you a bit, but even he wouldn't be able to track that teleport the Judoon used or be able to repair his vortex manipulator."

She raised her eyebrows.

"Relax, Doctor. I know better than to share information that could cause the human race to accelerate too quickly."

He studied her face.

"You're not from the twenty-first century, are you? You've…what? Fallen through time? Got sucked up by the rift and ended up in twenty-first century Cardiff? Or maybe you're a time agent? You're a long way from home, aren't you?"

She twisted her lips.

"Yes and no."

"But if you have the knowledge to fix Jack's vortex manipulator, why don't you just go home? Granted, the accuracy can be iffy, but you could probably get pretty close…"

Her eyes looked troubled, then, her face filled with an emotion he knew quite intimately. She bore the look of a woman who was running away.

"I can't go home."

His instincts told him not to press her, but his curiosity got the better of his tact.

"Why not?"

She bit her bottom lip, hesitating.

"Sometimes….sometimes you need to leave the past in the past and the future in the future. Just be who you are now rather than who you were or who you could have been or who you might be."

He nodded in tacit understanding. A man on the run from his prophesied future could hardly argue with that. They began again on their meandering path through the storage room.

They turned a corner, and there, at the end of the aisle, stood a very familiar police box. He snapped his fingers and gave a little chuckle when the doors opened of their own accord. He so liked that little trick.

The two of them entered the TARDIS and his mind was flooded with a feeling of effervescent warmth. His ship sometimes had this reaction when he escaped from a particularly tricky scrape, but he hadn't felt her this pleased since…he swallowed and ducked his head, pushing it from his mind, choosing instead to focus on his new passenger.

He did a double take. She was…well, _stroking_ one of the coral pillars, a soft smile on her face. That had to be the strangest reaction anyone has ever had to seeing the inside of his ship for the first time. Not that it was a _bad_ reaction, mind. As much as he looked forward to the inevitable "it's bigger on the inside" comment, he found himself rather affected by how lovingly she looked at his ship. He cleared his throat.

"So, what do you think?" he asked, throwing his arms wide. He found himself wanting to impress her.

Her smile bloomed radiantly and her green eyes shone in a way he could not explain.

"She's beautiful," she replied, "inside and out." Her lips twitched slightly, as though this was some kind of private joke, before the look dissipated and she met his eyes expectantly.

"You're not going to ask about…" He gestured about him.

"I know a thing or two about temporal physics, Doctor, in case you hadn't noticed. I imagine for a being, such as yourself, who walks in a world of 4+1 dimensions, bigger on the inside would be a party trick."

"Weeeell…bit dull for a party trick, to be honest. Though I am quite brilliant at a party, I must say." He winked. Hold on. What the hell did he do that for? Women always felt it was flirting, and he knew better by now than to lead some poor woman on. Learned a lesson or two from Martha on that.

"Aren't you going to get us out of this place?" She gestured at the console and made her way over to the jump seat, plopping down as though this was all rather routine to her.

"Right. Yes. Of course." He sprang into action, pulling levers and turning knobs until they were sitting safely in the vortex.

His guest pulled out a large plastic bag from her satchel and handed it to him.

"I nicked your stuff from the storage room. In case you want to go change." She nodded towards the lime green boiler suit he was wearing.

"Right. Yes. I'll just…" He gestured at the hallway over his shoulder, and took off towards his bedroom.

As he pulled a suit out of the wardrobe, he contemplated what it was about this woman that put him so off guard. He had met Jack's recruits in the past, when he had assisted on an invasion or two over the years, but she did not quite fit that mould. It was not just the anachronistic level of scientific knowledge either, though that was certainly enough to catch his attention. It was that there was no fear underlying her competence, no instinctive drifting of her hands towards a weapon in face of danger. Indeed, there was something of himself in the way she seemed so at ease in this alien world, yet so ill-at-ease at the mention of her own history. It both scared and beguiled him.

* * *

Rose sighed, leaning her head back and putting her heels up on the edge of the console. She could not believe she was back here, in the TARDIS, with the Doctor. Oh, how she had longed for this when she was first separated from him six years ago. But to be here now, after all this time…she did not know how to feel.

She felt an affectionate nudge in the back of her mind, and jumped slightly. Oh, of course. The TARDIS. When she had felt the Doctor's telepathic presence on Chat Dif III, she had quickly erected mental barriers to shield herself, not wanting to distract him with the knowledge that she was a telepath. However, she'd had a bond with the TARDIS ever since she had looked into the heart of the ship, and mental barriers would be useless against that sort of bond. She sent the ship her own warm greeting in return. She had missed the TARDIS almost as much as she had missed her pilot. She just wished that her relationship with the man could be as uncomplicated as her relationship with his ship.

When the Doctor reappeared, he was wearing a blue suit she had never seen before. He put his hands in his pockets and strode over to her.

"So, you seem to have me at a disadvantage here," he smiled, leaning back on his heels and rocking forward. "You seem to know quite a lot about me, but I don't even know your name."

She froze. What was she supposed to say? She had not been lying when she told Jack that she could not just waltz back into the Doctor's life and pick up where she left off.

"How about first you tell me what you did to tick off the Shadow Proclamation."

She was deflecting, she knew, but this was an issue that did need to be addressed. The Shadow Proclamation might be harsh, but from what Jack told her, their laws were just.

"Oh, that was just a misunderstanding," he shrugged. "Bit of he-said she-said and some cultural mix-ups."

"If they locked you up in Chat Dif III that implies that they believe you broke intergalactic law, which is hardly an arbitrary set of rules, Doctor," she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Weeeeeell…never been one to play by the rules, me," he grinned. "Besides, you must not believe I did anything too terrible if you decided to break me out."

She hesitated a moment, glancing away.

"I rescued you because…because I believe at heart you are a good man," she replied. "A good man who did not deserve what the Shadow Proclamation would have done to him. But even good men can do terrible things when driven by duty or grief or desperation."

She met his eyes steadily. Now it was his turn to glace away.

"You've known me all of an hour and yet you are so sure of my character."

She paused and tilted her head, trying desperately to come up with a plausible reply.

"I have…a rather thorough knowledge of your history." She bit her bottom lip, hoping he wouldn't press her.

"Oh, do tell. Has Jack been gossiping about me? Or…oh no. Have you read my UNIT file?"

She suppressed a grin. His UNIT file really was a laugh.

The Doctor cleared his throat and grimaced. "I'll take that as a yes." He rubbed the back of his neck, looking absently at the time rotor.

"Guess we're at a stalemate, then," he said, pacing around the console to flip a few levers. "I'd rather not get into the gritty details of what the Shadow Proclamation wanted with me, and you don't want to give me your name." He sniffed and looked her quickly up and down. "Too bad, really, you seem like someone I might like to know."

"Well, it's not as if I know your name, either, _Doctor_."

The Doctor chuckled, tugging his ear and eyeing her with a grin.

"Touché."

She bit her bottom lip and grinned back. Oh, this man and his ship and his adventures. They never lost their allure.

"Well. Guess you'll want to get back to Cardiff then. Unless…" He hesitated.

"Unless…?"

"You could come with me…if you want." He shrugged. "Just for one trip. A thank you for your help. Torchwood agent such as yourself, must be curious about distant alien planets."

He was asking her…? Her mind reeled, and before she could stop herself, words were tumbling out of her mouth.

"That sounds_ fantastic_."

He grinned manically, a note of delight issuing from the back of his throat.

"Well then. Allons-y."

She took a breath. What the hell had she just got herself into?


	3. Restored

Rose stood back and watched the Doctor dash about the console, all manic energy. She could not believe that she was the Doctor's companion once more, if only for one trip. Of course, he had no idea who she really was. However, the fact that he'd invited her along–this her, not some memory of who she once was–heartened her. Oh, how she had missed this life.

"So, where are we headed?" she asked, barely suppressing a grin.

"Oh no no no no no, _that_ is a surprise. Wouldn't want to ruin your first trip by giving it all away before we even leave the TARDIS!"

He expertly turned a knob, looking up at the time rotor speculatively, tip of his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. Rose felt the ship jolt and saw the Doctor's lips widen into a smile. He gestured towards the door.

"Well, go on then. Take a look." He bounced on the balls of his feet.

She felt a giggle rise in her throat. It was an odd feeling in her new body. She could not remember the last time she had giggled. She suspected it was on her last day with him.

She stepped outside and was met with the sight of activity in every direction. With a lavender sky above and baby blue grass below, people with pale yellow skin and three eyestalks danced and sang in a breeze that smelled almost like roasted almonds, though with a hint of something else that was spicy and entirely foreign. Booths selling native delicacies hawked their wares, and almost eerie, electronic-sounding music wafted through the air. Towering over the whole scene was the strangest rock formation that she had ever seen. It was as if a mountain had burst open, but the action had been paused mid-explosion. Hard stone shot out of the towering peak like flash-frozen drops of flying liquid. At the top of the formation stood a massive, glowing object, rapidly changing colours and sparking, a giant strobe light over the celebration.

Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of foreboding rippled down her time sense. It was as if they approached something solid and important, dangerous and monumental. Yet it rumbled, jolting crust fracturing over a molten shell. It made her ears ring, and for a second she could taste time's plaintive wails, poisonous and metallic on the back of her tongue. It gagged her. She shook her head and forcefully blocked it out.

She recalled the Doctor explaining long ago that he almost never looked at an individual's timeline. It had confused her then, not understanding yet the confused terrorheartbreak of seeing countless possibilities of lives filter through her senses. Now, she too blocked them out. Yet she, like the Doctor, could always sense obliquely their general ebb and flow, feeling the general direction of the tide, with only the very strongest of individual waves breaking through her deliberate inattention. And, at the moment, they were approaching a veritable tsunami.

She heard the Doctor walk up behind her, striding casually to her side, nearly bubbling over with excitement. If he could feel what she was feeling, he didn't let on. Then again, with the way he courted danger, perhaps this glee was his reaction to what she'd just felt. Well, it had been a while since she'd had a proper adventure. Getting her unease under control, she grinned up at him.

"Welcome to Great Magellan," he said, eyes twinkling down at her.

She instinctively linked her arm through his. His eyes lingered on their twined arms, and he smiled softly.

"I love it," she told him, and his smile widened.

"The locals are the Hedons," he said, nodding towards the nearest yellow person, who was blowing figures out of green smoke to entertain a circle of three-eyed children. "And _that_ is the Phosphorus Carousel of the Great Magellan Gestadt." He gestured towards the flashing structure atop the exploding mountain.

"Why is it all…?" She made an exploding gesture with her hands.

"The planet's core is unstable. Their scientists were getting readings that it was ready to blow and told everyone to prepare for the apocalypse. Naturally, anarchy erupted and everyone started living like it was their last day alive. The whole planet became one big party. But, right at the last minute, someone figured out how to use a stasis field to effectively put the explosion on pause, creating the Gestadt." He gestured towards the exploding mountain. "However, ordinary folks, not being scientifically inclined, believed that it was their sudden revelry that convinced the gods to spare them, so the people became devoted to continuing their fun and debauchery lest a higher power decided to rescind their pardon. So no one really stopped living like it's the end of the world."

Rose took this in, furrowing her brow.

"When does it end, though? Isn't there a point where they realise they need to start living their normal lives again? To move on and progress?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Weeell…it all catches up with them eventually. It isn't a permanent solution. On the hundredth anniversary of the initial explosion something ends up disrupting the stasis field's power source, and the explosion wipes out half the planet. It allows them to rebuild, though. Eventually they become one of the great gems of the galaxy. Huge trading hub and cultural capital. But for now, it's all about the carpe diem."

Rose eyed the merrymakers, feeling suddenly young and carefree again, the heaviness in her heart lifting just a bit. Perhaps for a while, at least, she could wish those years in Pete's World away and be someone entirely new. Not Rose Tyler, but a new woman to match the new face. If she let herself just forget the past, she could be the Doctor's new companion, seeing alien planets for the first time, and living on one adrenaline high to the next.

She grinned and bumped the Doctor's shoulder with her own.

"C'mon. I want to try the local cuisine."

* * *

The Doctor watched from afar as his nameless companion chatted animatedly with a vendor of Chwall'itt, a celery-like vegetable smothered in preserved fruit. She had said that she would be right back with their food, but she had been standing there fifteen minutes chatting away, and he was starting to get hungry.

He studied her as he approached. She had seemed so serious on Chat Dif III, level-headed in the face of danger, all business as usual. Yet since arriving on Great Magellan she had a new lightness about her. And now, making herself at home with the locals, not a trace of xenophobia in her body language, he could not help but admire her ability to connect with someone so different from herself. He found himself wondering if he might entice her into a second trip. Coming up behind her, he could just make out the conversation she was having with the female Hedon.

"…that must be terrible for you."

She put a hand on the Hedon's arm, brushing the dewy skin softly with her thumb. All three of the Hedon's eyes glanced down at her hand and welled up with tears.

"I just…" The Hedon's voice broke, and she looked distractedly away. "They've already taken my eldest son. This one will either grow up an orphan as well, or die before he has a chance to start."

"Who's they?"

"The Outsiders. They run the carousel. If we pay their fee, they'll take our children off planet, so they don't have to grow up with Doomsday looming." She nodded toward the Gestadt. "They're the only ones who can afford off-world teleports."

His companion clutched the Hedon's hand.

"It's an awful thing, to lose a child," she said softly, glancing away quickly before meeting the Hedon woman's eyes once more. "But it sounds like you did what was best for him. Just as you will for the one on the way. Take heart in that. Your son lives on because you had the strength to do what was best for him."

The Hedon woman wiped each of her eyes, with a large pink handkerchief.

"Thank you."

The Doctor cleared his throat, making his presence behind them known. His companion whipped around and gave him a smile, grabbing their food, and patting the Hedon's hand.

"It's been lovely talking to you."

"And to you. Happy Centenary."

As they walked back to a set of picnic tables where Hedons and tourists of various species laughed and mingled, he grabbed her hand impulsively. There was something that just felt right about the way her fingers linked with his, the graze of her thumb over his like a forgotten dream. They sat down at a table, facing the Gestadt, munching on their Chwall'itt with their free hands.

"So tell me about the carousel. How did it come to be?"

"Well, that's an interesting story, actually," he replied around a crunchy mouthful, swallowing quickly before continuing on. "It showed up right after the mountain exploded. Brought here by off-worlders hoping to capitalize on the on all the people living like it's the end of the world. Hoped to make it a big tourist destination. And they succeeded. The carousel and the Gestadt are renowned across the galaxy. There's even a local legend that's grown up around it. To leave Great Magellan without riding the carousel is tempting fate."

"Tempting fate with what?" she grinned broadly, looking slyly up at him. He couldn't help but grin back.

"Well, the course of your life, I suppose. Though it is a funny turn of phrase isn't it? Tempting fate. As if the powers of time cared enough about any one individual to drive the course of their life. Granted, there are some things I've seen…" His mind drifted to Rose, eyes golden, with the power of all of time and space at her disposal, a benevolent goddess of time.

His companion seemed to sense the need to draw his mind back to the present. She squeezed his hand and turned again to the great glowing carousel, pulling him with her as she got up and strode over to a better vantage point.

"Oh, that's brilliant, that is. What's next? The Dodgems of Destiny?" She giggled, and he felt himself joining in.

"Weeeeell…can't say I've ever heard of anything quite like that, though they do worship candy floss and pogo sticks on Isolgo. However, if we want to make a real tour of the universe's best fun fairs we should really head to Hedgewick's World of Wonders next. Excellent Spacey Zoomer, and the Mushroom Terror is a hoot."

"Hmm…" she said, nodding. His heart leapt when she didn't point out that he had only promised her one trip.

"You're going to have to tell me your name at some point, you know," he teased, beaming down at her.

She gave him a wry grim.

"We'll just have to wait and see how this goes, hmm?"

His heart sank, and he nodded and glanced down at his trainers. Apparently he hadn't earned that yet. After a moment, he felt a hand on his arm, rubbing up and down gently.

"Oh, don't be like that. C'mon. Let's go ride that carousel."

* * *

As they walked out of the lift that took them up the side of the mountain, joined hands swinging between them, Rose found years of tension receding from her body. New world, new adventure. A fresh start, traveling amongst the stars with the Doctor.

"So, what were you talking to that Hedon lady about?" the Doctor asked as they joined the queue for the carousel, the bright, flashing fire beneath the clear material molded into the shapes of unfamiliar animals causing her to squint and avert her eyes from the spectacle.

"Oh, she is upset that she found out she's pregnant again. It's not very blessed news when you constantly have the destruction of your planet literally hanging over your head. Plus, she's already had to send her son away."

"Hmm…" He nodded, eyeing her thoughtfully, before glancing away when she caught his eye.

"The thing is, though, Doctor, she said that people are paying this group called the Outsiders to send their children off planet. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"

"Odd? They're afraid their planet's going to blow up. And if some off-worlders found a way to get some people off planet for a profit that seems like a good thing for everyone involved."

"Yes, but if they can make a profit from taking as many people off planet as possible, why not take anyone who will pay them to go? Why just children? And it's not like they're afraid of coming to this planet too often. Some of them have made this place a tourist destination! They stay here to mind their business, leaving themselves at risk like everyone else." She gestured towards the carousel.

His eyes narrowed. "Good point."

"Plus, according to the woman I talked to, they use teleports, which should give them the ability to transport an unlimited number of people, so if they're interested in profits, there should be no limits on the kind or number of people they transport."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Okay. Another point in the odd column."

She looked out over the view from the top of the Gestadt, experiencing a peculiar sort of vertigo. The civilization below lost a bit of its magic from the birds-eye view. What had looked like celebration now appeared to be a sort of despondent melee. Hedons minding their stalls smiled at customers only to lose all energy once they thought no one was looking. Even the old man blowing figures in smoke now appeared to be nothing more than an old addict from this angle. It occurred to her then that the celebration was nothing but a show for the tourists. This was a society that was holding on almost in spite of itself, waiting for a death that had been too long coming.

Out the corner of her eye she caught sight of three large eyes peeking out of a manhole (one of which was bloody and completely swollen over) before quickly disappearing again below ground. She narrowed her eyes and took off to investigate, pulling the Doctor with her by the hand.

"Wh–What? Where are we going? I thought we were going to ride the carousel…"

"I think the answer's down here," she replied, pulling up the nearly invisible manhole cover to reveal a ladder hanging down the side into a deep, narrow hole.

"Is it?" the Doctor asked, voice raising an octave.

"Yes," she replied, placing her trainer on the first rung of the rickety rope ladder.

He grabbed her wrist, pulling her up, so she was forced to stand fully above ground once more. He placed his hands on her shoulders and met her eyes steadily.

"Not that I'm against descending into a nice scary dark hole in the ground, but I'd rather have all the facts as to why you find this a good idea before we do so."

She sighed. How was it that he always missed the obvious things?

"I just spotted a Hedon child peeking out of this very hole in a rather suspicious manner. It looked injured."

"Right. Yes." The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and nodded slowly. "Well, down the nice scary dark hole it is, then."

* * *

The harsh burn of vaporized chemicals stung his throat as he descended rickety ladder. Hm…white phosphorus. He heard his companion cough harshly below him, but he couldn't see her through the thick haze of white smoke. The deeper they descended the more overpowering the smoke became, invading his sinuses and requiring him to employ his respiratory bypass.

As they reached the floor, he grabbed his companion's shoulder, pulling her closely to him, and bringing his lips to her ear.

"Need to go back," he muttered hoarsely. "White phosphorus. Not safe for a human."

As he spoke, smoke flooded his larynx and he was overtaken by a coughing fit. He felt a tug on his arm and followed her lead, distracted by the poison choking his senses. After a minute, he realised he was breathing easier and dared to open his eyes again.

"We're in some kind of workroom." His companion coughed, hair sticking to her sweating brow, and eyes tinged bright red with irritation. "Smoke doesn't seem as bad in here."

He gripped her shoulders with urgency. "We need to get you out of here. Prolonged exposure to white phosphorus is lethal to humans."

She shook her head. "Don't worry about me. It's not so bad here. What we need to worry about is saving them." She nodded behind him, and he turned, following her line of vision.

There, in the middle of the large cavern, were hundreds of Hedon children, yellow faces tinged a sickly green, and bits of burnt flesh forming gaping wounds on their bodies. They seemed to be mining some kind of mineral, hacking at the walls with pickaxes, and hauling carts full of it. They were feeding it into a large machine, which was producing a fine, white powder.

A great furnace dominated the chamber, its smokestack of about twenty feet in diameter rising through a ceiling filled with wires and turning gears. The children were feeding the white powder into it through hatches in its sides. Inside it he could spy blinding white flames. Sparks flew out and scorched the children's skin, leaving large, oozing welts.

In a corner of the room, was a heap of what look suspiciously like a heap of ashen yellow dead bodies.

He felt anger distil in his chest, spreading through his veins, liquid energy sparking at his nerve endings, telling him to end this and enact revenge on the perpetrators. Somewhere on this planet was someone who needed reminding that no one got away with schemes like this without answering to the Oncoming Storm.

"We need to put a stop to this."

She met his gaze then, her pain at seeing these children in such agony evident in her eyes.

"Of course. What else would we do?"

* * *

They entered a control room off to the side, startling a group of humanoid aliens with deep magenta skin, who were huddled around a computer. Rose relished the feeling of smoke-free air filling her lungs, hearing the slight sucking sound of the chamber re-sealing itself off behind them.

The Doctor held out the psychic paper.

"Hello! We're from the parent company, just dropping by for a routine inspection. How do you do?"

One of the aliens stepped forward, eyes narrowed.

"As Chief Inspector for East Gilesean Company, I'd say you most certainly are not."

So the fun began. They were promptly surrounded and tied up back to back. Two of the aliens were left to question them.

"Corporate spies, perhaps? The Epsilonians have been trying to copy our business model for years…"

"Nah, woulda come up with a better cover in that case. This lot's clearly amateurs. Look at 'em."

Off in a corner, she saw the other three aliens still hunched over the computer, the appearance of the Doctor and herself clearly not as disturbing as whatever they were looking at on that screen.

"…dunno. They're dressed just like that couple on that soap on Epsilon Delta. The Contins! His coat looks just like the one he was wearing in that episode where he was exploring her sexual limits."

"True. The wife in that has green hair, though. And even so, that's hardly proof they're Epsilonians…"

"What I'd like to know," the Doctor broke in, "is why you are enslaving hundreds of Hedon children and putting them in working conditions that will kill them within three months."

The first alien turned to the second. "You're right. Definitely not Epsilonians. No subtlety whatsoever."

"Oi!"

"What he means to ask," Rose interrupted him before he had a chance to go on a babbling rant about just how wonderfully subtle he believed himself to be, "is why you've recruited so many children. Is there something wrong with your systems?"

The second alien shrugged. "The stasis field has been losing stability for the last week. We think there's a bug in the programming. We're having to maintain a greater level of labour to provide it with enough power in the meantime."

"Mind if I take a look?" she heard the Doctor ask from behind her.

One of the aliens standing at the computer turned, then, interest seemingly piqued.

"Do you actually know anything about stasis fields?"

"Big energy-sucking things that suspend bits of space in time? Yeah, I'd say I know a thing or two."

"Untie him," the alien ordered. The Doctor rushed over to the computer.

"So the carousel is a by-product of the stasis field?" Rose asked their captors.

"Well, we were afraid the phosphorous flames would scare the tourists, so we made them a feature of the carousel. Great idea, too. It's made us buckets."

"So, just out of curiosity, what exactly is your interest in keeping this thing running? You're off-worlders, yes?"

"Business, what else? The whole 'live like it's your last day' bit is a marketing dream. A volcano put on pause mid-eruption is a natural draw, so we figured out how to build the stasis field using the planet's natural phosphorus reserves, built a transparent carousel over the flames, and charged ridiculous admission for it. Who are we to deny the power of supply and demand? The universe wants spectacle, so we provide it."

"At the cost of the lives of young Hedon children?"

The alien shrugged. "Well, they most likely wouldn't have had a chance to be born if we let the Gestadt blow in the first place. We figure they owe us."

The Doctor's voice became dangerous then. "I think you need to leave."

The alien spluttered. "I beg your pardon?"

"This stasis field is going to fail within the quarter-hour. The Gestadt's preparing to blow."

The aliens shared a look and rushed to a box in the corner, which appeared to contain a stash of teleports. In a bright flash, they were gone.

The Doctor walked back over to Rose and released her from her bonds before returning to examining the computer system.

"Is it really getting ready to blow?"

"Yep. Through I can patch the program to keep it going a little while longer."

Rose nodded. "Good." She grabbed the box of teleports. "That gives us enough time to evacuate those children."

Even though it saddened her heart that all those people out there were going to die today, she had long ago accepted that everything had its time and everything died. This was the Centenary, she realised now, putting together what the Hedon lady had said and the demise of this civilization that the Doctor had described. It was a fixed point. The very same fixed point she'd sensed since they had arrived. She was just happy that by their intervention, she and the Doctor managed to save a few of these children's lives. She knew that saving everyone out there would be too much, that time would rupture. So she took heart in this little piece of good.

* * *

"Quick." The Doctor threw his companion the sonic and she caught it deftly. "Setting 443D will recalibrate those teleports so that it sends them to the best orphanage in the galaxy. One of the few I know of that actually try to give the children a nice, loving home. Advanced medical tech, too. They'll be able to treat their injuries."

She nodded, and headed off with the sonic and box of teleports. He stared after her a moment. The rare occasions that he ran across that kind of human compassion always floored him. She had no idea how long he could keep the stasis field going, yet she took it upon herself to get those kids out, rather than to use the extra time to book it back to the TARDIS. Of course, what she didn't know was that his patch could stabilise the stasis field for quite a bit longer than a few minutes.

He could feel the fixed point approaching, knew in his bones that it had to stand. Half the planet burned today, would have without question had he not come here, so apparently now it was up to him to make it happen. And really, he should do it. They may have driven all of the Gileseans temporarily off-planet, but once they realised that the planet hadn't really blown up, they'd be back to their imperialist ways, putting more and more Hedons into slavery, not caring if it lead these poor people to drawn out and painful deaths.

His finger hovered over the keyboard, ready to type out the sequence that would deactivate the stasis field. Through the window he could see that his companion was teleporting the last group of Hedon children out. He should do it now. All of his instincts told him to do it now.

He put his hands in his pockets. He could not yet again be the cause of such death and destruction. Perhaps the Gileseans wouldn't return. Perhaps, when they did, the Hedons would be able to stage a revolt and find a way to fuel the stasis field that didn't inevitably kill all of its workers, even though he, with his great big Time Lord brain, could not. Leaving the stasis field intact did not necessarily spell a slow and painful death for the civilization, as they gave their lives one-by-one to keep the planet from blowing up. And time could be rewritten.

* * *

Rose ran into the control room, panting to catch her breath. She was beginning to sense the smoke was doing lasting damage to her lungs. The Doctor was studying the computer interface in earnest, but looked up at her abruptly as she entered.

"They're all out?"

"Yep. All off-planet."

"Good." He nodded, seeming to consider the screen in front of him a moment, before turning to her and taking her hand. "Let's go."

"How long do we have until it blows?"

He shrugged. "Oh, a good many years now, I'd reckon. I patched it up quite nicely."

She shook her head. "But today's the Centenary, Doctor. That's what that Hedon lady I was talking to said. And you said the Gestadt blows on the hundredth anniversary. Plus, there's no way to fuel the thing in a way that doesn't slowly kill the workers."

She felt the fixed point approaching, wobbling on its axis, her senses drowning out all else. Her vision blurred and she could taste bile rising in her throat as the timelines dipped and dived and waved between her ears. How could he possibly not feel it? For there was no doubt In her mind that it was his decision right here that was causing time to lose stability around them. What had happened to this man, who used to be able to make the hard choices? To acknowledge that everything has its time and everything dies? It occurred to her then that just as she was not the same Rose Tyler, this was not the same Doctor. All she knew was that in this moment in time, she needed to be the woman he taught her to be. As much as she had changed, she had never stopped making a stand, and if he couldn't, it was up to her to have the guts to do what was right here.

She turned to the computer and saw the screen opened to the program that would shut down the stasis field. A warning signal flashed above the deactivation protocol. 'DEACTIVATING THE STASIS FIELD IS IRREVERSIBLE. UPON DEACTIVATION, THE GESTADT WILL BLOW WITHIN THE QUARTER HOUR.' Without hesitating, she typed the necessary sequence, feeling the timelines right themselves as she did so. The Doctor's eyes widened with panic and anger, the ice in his eyes sending chills down her spine. However, they didn't have time to argue about it.

They ran. Bursting out the emergency exist, they hurried down the rocky slope of the Gestadt, arms thrown backwards as their trainers slid against the gravel, and raced against time to the TARDIS. Just as they reached it, they heard screams in the background, and Rose looked over her shoulder to see the Phosphorus Carousel explode in a blinding flash of light before the Doctor pulled her inside. He rushed to the console, sending them into the vortex before they could be caught in the planet's destruction.

The Doctor rounded on her then, shoulders squared and eyes piercing, the full force of the Oncoming Storm focused solely on her.

"What the hell do you think you were doing? You just destroyed half that planet! I've seen my companions do a lot of stupid things in my life, but never in all my years has one done something so utterly–"

"I was preserving a fixed point in time. You said yourself the planet was destroyed on the Centenary. What the _fuck_ were you doing back there?"

"I was saving people's_ lives_. It's what I do. Time can be rewritten." He sniffed, pacing around the console, glaring at her from behind the time rotor.

"That wasn't saving lives, Doctor. That was attempting to uproot the causal nexus of that planet's entire future! You said yourself that that destruction allows for a better society to form. Plus, that planet should have been destroyed a century ago, and since then its languished in stasis, fear of the future preventing its progress and haunting its residents. "

The Doctor's eyes flashed, and his lips twitched subtly.

"With an extra fifty years from my patch, who's to say they wouldn't have found a way to overthrow the Gileseans and keep the thing going on their own. This way, everybody lives. Doctor: 1, Death and Destruction: 0. Time Lord Victorious."

"Cut the crap. The only way they would have been able to keep that stasis field going is to slowly and painfully kill each and every worker. Even if you'd managed to convince the Gileseans to stop hurting the children, someone would have to mine the phosphorus and feed that flame. There was no way to do it without killing every recruit. And even then the stasis field won't last forever. Not to mention the fact that altering Great Magellan's history like that would chart a new course that would mess with all kinds of timelines. One life affects another, which affects another. Not only are you denying this world a better future, you're altering the course of generations. People who would have been born may no longer be. In effect, you'd be erasing people from time, Doctor."

"Different people would spring up in their place. No net harm." His stance was still rigid, but his eyes lost some of their fire. He was grasping at straws now.

She took a breath, and suddenly her voice was very soft. "Who are you to decide who lives and who dies, who enters or leaves existence? You aren't a god, Doctor."

He chuckled humourlessly. "Aren't I? Last of the Time Lords. It's in my power to chart a course for the universe."

"Will you listen to yourself? Why would you even WANT to be a god? To bear the guilt of every life you fail to save? To take all the horror in the universe on yourself? To allow yourself to be the final arbiter of right and wrong? I'm sorry, Doctor, but I don't think you'd make a very good god. I don't think anyone would."

The Doctor held her gaze, then, just for a moment.

"I just–I can't–" His Adam's apple bobbed and he looked briefly at the ceiling before glancing at her and looking away again. "I–" His mouth opened and closed. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and stalked off into the bowels of his ship.

Rose sighed and collapsed onto the jump seat.

"What's happened to him?" she asked the empty room.

The TARDIS hummed sadly.

* * *

The Doctor leaned his head back against the headboard, letting the hum of the TARDIS soothe him. She had been right. She had been absolutely, one hundred percent right. He had felt the approach of that fixed point, yet had ignored the potential ramifications, refusing to yet again to let the destruction just happen, when he knew it needed to. Looking back over the past two weeks, his desire to defy time, symbolic as its passing minutes were of this incarnation's sprint towards its prophesied demise, dominated his every move. While he still did not feel prepared to accept that his death was coming, he knew he needed to stop avoiding his responsibility to the universe. It was his duty to uphold the laws of time, not to toy with them on his whim.

He took comfort in the familiar details of the room around him, noting the pictures of two beaming people on the corkboard, the purple top draped over the chair, the collection of alien rag mags collecting dust on the bedside table, even the dirty knickers that littered the floor. What his companion had told him was exactly what he had needed to hear, exactly what She would have said in the same situation. Hell, what she had done on that planet, taking matters into her own hands and challenging his decisions, standing up for what she knew was right, was so like Her as well. He shook his head. After all this time, he really needed to stop with the pronouns. Her name was too worthy of remembrance. Rose Tyler. This woman reminded him of Rose Tyler. Her compassion, her tenacity, her ability to do what's right even if it meant defying him, her zest for danger, these were all of the things he so needed in someone by his side. All he knew was he needed to keep her in his life. Desperately.

But after everything that had happened today, how could she possibly want to?

* * *

Rose paced her new room in agitation. Though she knew in her heart of hearts that she had done the right thing, she was afraid that she had irrevocably alienated the Doctor. She sat down on the bed and sighed, sending the TARDIS feelings of thanks for the room. She had really outdone herself this time. It was downright luxurious. The king bed took up half the room, decked out in TARDIS-blue satin, a beautiful writing desk and a fancy antique vanity occupying its opposite corners. Her ensuite was all marble, with soft lighting and a tub that was really more of a small jacuzzi. She suspected the ship was doing her damnedest to get her to stay.

She felt the TARDIS nudge her mind then, seemingly guiding her towards the bedside table. She opened the drawer and found her secret stash of photos, the ones she had kept under her mattress so that the Doctor wouldn't discover that she secretly spent hours reminiscing over his old face. But the old him wasn't the only person in these photos. There was her mum and Mickey as well, and a number of the old her and this him that had a bit too much emotion behind the eyes to display openly on her wall. Her heart constricted. At long last, her eyes fell on the final picture. She may have lost her mum and Mickey, but she still had one person in this universe she could go to with her Doctor troubles.

Pulling her phone and her sonic out of her bag, she made a few adjustments to give herself universal roaming. Taking a deep breath, she dialled a number she knew by heart.

"Rose! What happened to you guys?" Jack's voice sounded concerned.

"Um, well, the Doctor kind of asked me to come with him."

She could practically hear Jack rolling his eyes. "Of course he did, Rose. It's what I've been telling you all along. That man lo–"

"I didn't tell him my name."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Who does he think you are then?"

"Just some random Torchwood agent you recruited. Though my knowledge of temporal physics tipped him off, so he thinks I'm from the future and somehow got stranded in the twenty-first century."

Jack snorted. "Well, he's always been a bit thick."

"We went to this planet…and there was this fixed point. Half the planet had to die. But he was going to alter it. I had to take action myself and make sure it happened. And he was so angry, Jack. I don't think he's going to let me stay with him. But I think he needs me. Or someone, at least. There's something going on with him. Something making him reckless. How do I get him to let me stay?"

Jack let out a long breath. "Well, for starters, you could always tell him your name."

She rubbed her eyes. "If he wants me to be here it needs to because he accepts this me, not some memory of me." There was more to this of course, but she wasn't ready to delve into her feelings on this matter at the present.

"Rose, he wouldn't–" Jack cut himself off, seeming to realise this argument would be futile, after having it with her time and again over the previous months. "I think you just need to be yourself here, Rose. The Doctor knows as well as you what altering a fixed point could mean for the universe. Once he's calmed down a bit I'm sure he'll realise you did the right thing. You being yourself is exactly what he needs, Rose. Just…let him come round in his own time."

She sighed and bit her bottom lip. "Thanks, Jack."

"I can guarantee you one thing, Rose. That man is unable to resist you, no matter the regeneration, no matter whether he knows it's you or not. It'll be okay. You'll see."

* * *

The Doctor sat in the doorway of the TARDIS, legs dangling over the edge and into space as he looked out over a swirling pink nebula. It had been four hours since they left Great Magellan, and he was trying desperately to think of a way to convince his new companion to stay with him. Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him, and he felt the warmth of another body settling down next to him.

He waited a long moment, assuming that she had a reason for seeking him out. Eventually, he realised that she was waiting for him to speak first.

"You were right."

She nodded. "I know."

He hesitated, knowing that if this was going to work, he would need to come clean. Nonetheless, this didn't make his next confession any easier.

"The Judoon arrested me because I altered a fixed point in time."

Her eyes widened.

"You did what? How could–?" She shook her head and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. When she looked at him again, deep concern was the only emotion he could read in her eyes.

"What happened?" she asked, laying her hand gently on his arm.

"I–" He swallowed, looking away to stare down at the nebula below. "There was this colony on Mars in 2059. Bowie Base One. Everyone there was supposed to die. It was a part of history, an integral step that prompted humans to leave their home planet and populate the universe. But I was able to save them. Captain Adelaide Brooke and two others. Brought them back to Earth in my TARDIS."

"How is it that time didn't collapse? You didn't completely rewrite human history, did you? "

He buried his face in hands and sighed before staring straight ahead once more.

"Captain Brooke killed herself when she realised what I'd done. The lives of the other two weren't significant enough to alter the causal nexus."

He started when he felt her fingers weave through his, her thumb caressing his lightly. He looked at her then, amazed that this woman, who seemed to understand so well the repercussions of his actions, did not react with anger or even disappointment in him with this confession.

She reached up, caressing his face briefly before dropping her hand once again to her side.

"I'm sorry," she said, genuine concern in her eyes. "It's thankless, what you do for the universe. It's no wonder that once in a while you try to defy what you know must be, desperate for a happy ending."

She bit her lip then, as if mulling over her next sentence carefully.

"How long have you been on your own?" she asked, at long last.

He made a half-hearted noise of amusement. "What makes you think I was on my own?"

She gazed at him steadily.

"None of that would ever have happened if you'd had someone to stop you. And I suspect the loneliness makes you more desperate."

He stared at her in amazement. How was it that one human woman whom he'd known for less than twenty-four hours already understood him so well? He gulped and returned his gaze to the Earth below.

"It's been three years since Donna left," he said softly. "She was the last to travel with me. I still see her sometimes, but…" He shrugged.

"The universe just isn't the same when you have no one to share it with," she finished his aborted statement.

He felt her thumb brushing his and the weight of her head lean against his shoulder.

"Well, we can't have any more of that, can we?" she asked.

"More of what?"

"The loneliness. You've got me now."

He raised his eyebrows and looked down at her in surprise.

"Do I?"

"You do."

He felt a warmth spread through his chest, banishing cold despair from his bones. It lit him up from the inside.

"I don't even know your name," he said in wonder.

She bit her bottom lip and looked away, silent for a long moment.

"I'm…Iris. Iris Fletcher."

He beamed at her, as she met his eye again.

"Lovely to meet you Iris."

Lovely indeed.


End file.
